Electrical connectors are used in a wide variety of applications ranging from simple connecting interfaces between hard conductor wiring to more sophisticated applications involving such components as printed circuit boards, flat flexible cables and optical fibers. Basically, electrical connectors include some form of contacts, terminals or other conductors which interconnect one electrical device to another electrical device. The electrical connectors may involve systems whereby the connectors provide receiver-transmitter functions which, in addition, can convert high speed signals from solid (copper) cables or fiber optic cables to high speed signals on a system printed circuit board. As used herein, the terms "electrical" or "electrical connectors" or "electrical cable" are intended to include optical devices.
For instance, in the telecommunications industry, switching systems or circuitry may be provided on a rather sizable mother board at a particular location. A plurality of high speed electrical converter modules are mounted by appropriate frame structures on the mother board. Mating "plug-in" connector modules are plugged into the converter modules from outside the switching system. The incoming signals from the cables attached to the plug-in modules are at high speed, such as in the gigabit range, and the converter modules transfer and maintain the signals at high speed and transmit them to the circuitry on the mother board. Continuing problems have been encountered in the design and manufacturability of such systems. One of the problems involves providing a system wherein the connector modules can be mounted above the mother board at different spacings between the connectors. Heretofore, completely different frame structures had to be provided to afford different stacked spacings. The present invention is directed to solving these problems by simple modifications which allow for the use of the same frame structures for differently spaced connectors.